The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1887-02-27
THE RX.MINIsTER TO ESGLAND
In A HAPPY MOUD.
Endeavors to show That the Great
Tragedy Is Not the Work OF
Shakespeare,
BUT AN ADAP rATION BY THE
IMMORTAL BARD
Hurriedly Finished, Therefore Want
Ing in the Grace aud Strength
That Mark His Real Work.

cism, and then an illustration of
them from the play of Richard III,
or rather from the absence of certain
things in the play of Richard III,
which to my mind seem to indicate
that it is not Shakespeare's work.
Applause. 1t may be safely said
that since the publication of Wads-
worths Peter Bell" no quotation
has done such effective service as
A primrose, by the rivers brim,
A yellow primrose was 10 him,
And II was nothing more.
1t has been assumed as Words
worth assumed, that by this very sin
cerlty and simplicity of vision, and
by his honesty in letting it be known,
Peter was somehow guilty of a blacker
treason than that of his great name
sake in the servants hall in the pal
ace of the High Priest. Nobody
seems, however, to have thought of
asking under what theory OF duty
poor Peter was bound to have those
nice optics see what was not to be
seen. And it is as useless to ask for
a new trial in the case of Peter Bell
as in that of Socrates. He had been
guilty OF a misprisiOn of high es-
thetics, that most objectionable of
all crimes-for does it not involve
blindness of your view of prim-
rose, and, what is still worse, of my
view of primrose? We must
be content to sit pilloried for
ever, as, the typical Philistine.
Were it only for the ALTERATION
one is almost inclined to pity
poor Peter. No doubt but under a
practical and strictly business view
Of the question the culprit could find
a great deal to say for himself had
he owed Wordsworth shilling, for
example, and he offered sixpence
in full payment on the ground that
the smaller coin was a great deal
mora to him than to his creditor. 1t
may be suspected that the defective
vision would have shifted to the side
of the late poet laureate. The French
juries, when highly atrocious CRIME
has been tried before them, have an
old fashion of agreeing upon YER
dict OF guilty with extenuating cir
cumstances. And l myself, in the
case of Peter Bell, am sometimes in
clined to think that there may be
grounds on which even hesmight be
recommended to mercy.
CRITICISM.
Is it not, l ask, a relief to meet
now and then with person who sees
things precisely as they are? And
especially is it not relief sometimes
to meet such people in criticism? Is
not even DR.. Johnson's want OF sub
tlety sometime, almost refreshing in
an age when criticism is peculiarly
what is called creative, when each
critic is bound to dive deeper and
to come up-I won't venture to say
with our legendary-higher than his
predecessors, and protesting to have
seen something in the depths of the
primrose that nobody ever saw there
before? lie must either be original
or be paradoxical, as the cheapest
counterfeit of originality, or there
seems to be no reason for his being
at all. | have in the course of my
life met with critics who have gone
about to persuade me that l ought
not to like Gray, or Cooper, or
Scott, or Byron, aud | know
not whom else, simply because they
were not as Wordsworth or Shelley
was. Nay, it has been limited some
times that even Shakespeare himself
was no better than he should be.
Whatever feast of wit has been spread
for us by the choicest spirits of all
times, we really seem to be in danger
of finding ourselves, like Sancho in
his Governorship of Barataria-
scarcely is there dish set before us
but the steward touches it with his
staff and orders it away, as of nat
ure to disagree with us.
POLITICAL IMAGINATION.
No doubt it is perfectly true that
the very highest forms of poetical
imagination are of supreme rarity,
aud that their elimination, impas-
sionate intensity of utterance, is even
rarer. The flash is gone ere one can
say lightning" There is certainly
no such pang of intellectual pleasure
as when our own imaginations,
drawn forth and kindled by that OF
the poet in such a supreme moment,
are mingled with it in an'embrace of
fire; but there is a re!ion of milder
and more equable delights, less fever
ish and perhaps more wholesome for
'human natures daily food" If
man cannot live by bread alone"
so neither can he live by stimulants
and spices alone. 1t is one of the
highest Offices Of criticism TO teach
us how to find a field of not only
what is best, but also what is good of
its kind in all the arts. Mr.. Ruskin
holds a divining rod of exquisite
constituencies as well for the
more reconcile sources of purified
enjoyment as for those more
obvious aud nearer to the sur
face; and the breadth of the
great Goethe's mind, the catholicity
of his culture, and therefore of his
apprehension, is nowhere more to be
noted than in his hospitality to every
variety of merit, be, it high or low.
We are reminded, by his character of
the Arab legend in With tue hero is
said to have had 1856 gates to his pal
ace to admit guests, one for every
day in- the year, We turned around
on the-msjOrity of the poets o.. the
last century, as the teacher of rhet-
oric did on NJ. Jordan, and aston
ished5them very much by telling
them that they had been talking
prose all their lives without knowing
it, Il cannot be denied that there
we're Just causes OF complaint, for
most people like to take their poetry
neat, and,the mixtures these gentle-
men supplied in perfect good faith
contained as large a proportion OF
water. as the proVerbial milk Of com
merce. The reaction was justifia-
Bile; but it went, | think, too ar, as
is generally the case with such oscll-
lations of sentiment. Nothing short
of imagination in its highest and
deepest manifestations would satisfy